TEACHERS: The church is currently dominated by teachers. Is the emphasis on Bible teachers a Christian myth? You decide.
Jeremiah 31:33-34, "I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it...And they shall not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them."
1 John 2:27, "And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, abide in Him."
Could it be clearer? The focus has shifted from the Holy Spirit to Bible teachers.
Don't misunderstand. I believe teachers have a place in the church, but in the New Testament, teaching looked much different than it does today ~ it was a spiritual gift. Teachers were not the exegetes of Bible schools and seminaries (those are the Pharisees and Scribes), and they played a role that was balanced against the other gifts. Christianity is far more about heart knowledge than head knowledge.
"How serious is the problem?" you ask. We say, "Very serious!" Foremost is Jesus' own statement on the professionally trained: He thanks the Father for hiding spiritual truth from those who hold themselves to be "wise and intelligent" (Mt 11:25), stating God is pleased to do this, and instead reveals Himself "to babes." All one needs to do is look at the church to see that this has happened in spades. The church has divided into over 22,000 factions, primarily because of a difference in teachings. Our position: Pharisees and scribes control much of the church and most auxiliary Christian organizations.
"What should the church look like, and what did teachers in the New Testament do?" you ask.
First, teachers ought to be promoting unity in the church, not being dogmatic and pushing pet doctrines. The qualification for an elder is that he is "able to teach," not that he has a degree. "Able to teach what?" We think an elder ought to be teaching and modeling the very things that qualified him to be an elder! These "things" are qualities of faith, family, character, reputation, etc.
Second, in "the body of Christ," every believer is a priest (1 Pet. 2:9) with Jesus being our High Priest. In contrast, a professional, teacher-dominated church looks much like "the talking head of a quadriplegic." When the church gathers, Paul says every person contributes (1 Cor 14:26). This is impossible when the church is top-heavy with teachers. Professional teachers effectively turn church into a classroom, with believers "warming the pews." This is precisely what Jesus warned us not to do (see Pharisaism).
Third, a church dominated by professionally trained teachers gives the false impression that Christianity is about information. This "head-knowledge" opens the door to pride, and pride destroys relationships. It is ironic that the most unteachable persons in the body of Christ consider themselves to be teachers.
Fourth, Christian believers need to recognize that they are qualified by faith to hear directly from the Holy Spirit rather than receive that information from the holy human guru who is the anointed "keeper of the truth." The church is not the synagogue. It is a family. Teachers are not a special class exclusively entrusted with esoteric knowledge that is hidden from ordinary believers, as in the mystery religions of paganism. Unity in the church is a unity of hearts more than a unity of brains (although unity of mind is important). Teachers often have a hidden agenda to control the churches and their own territory, and it is wrong. This hierarchical approach produces a passive church that, at best, is committed to respectful listening, but does not passionately and agressively pursue God and truth on their own. They leave that to the "wise ones" who are commissioned to spoon-feed us the truth. Yes there are mature believers who are qualified to teach, but they are qualified by their character and life, not primarily by their education. Paul says in Hebrews that believers should mature to the point that they are able to teach the elementary principles of the faith to others, but he describes the mature as "those who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil," not those who have gone to seminary and spent their lives in ivory towers studying ancient manuscripts, writing books, and teaching on the conference/retreat circuit.
All this to say, the church is out of balance in this area of teaching and it needs to be recognized if we are going to see the reality of Christ's life manifested in the Body.
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